Egged announced the other day that they are canceling the bus stop on the corner of Yirmiyahu St and Eliyahav St in Jerusalem for the 418 and 419 bus routes leaving Jerusalem towards Ramat Bet Shemesh. Local city buses will continue to use that bus stop. This Friday, December 14, it will go into effect (though I do not know if that means Friday will be the last day or if the stop will already not be functioning on Friday - I suspect it is the latter).
This is significant because for these routes this was the only bus stop in the area of the Central Bus Station. Canceling this stop will mean people requiring this bus will have to go much further to find it - if they take a bus or train from another part of the city, they cant just go to the Bus State and walk down to the nearest stop - now they have a long walk or will have to take another bus to a different stop along the line. This is very inconvenient and will be the cause of a lot of anguish and frustration for travelers. This is also a very busy bus stop, so many people will be affected.
By the way, for people not sure what stop this is - it is across form Center 1 in jerusalem, just outside the Beit Yahav building, and across from the Ichud Hatzala building.
No reason was given in the announcement, but after many complaints, Egged has responded saying it is because of issues with road work and traffic flow in the area.
According to Kikar, Bet Shemesh City Councilman Shmulik Greenberg (also formerly responsible for the transportation portfolio - to his credit, even though he is no longer responsible for it) is putting forth efforts to resolve this problem in communication with Egged and the Ministry of Transportation, and Mayor Aliza Bloch is also in touch with the Transportation Ministry and Egged to get this resolved.
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